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Not There Yet

Michael 1 Comment
“I may not be there yet but I’m closer than I was yesterday.” I don’t know who said that. I don’t know if anybody actually said it or if it has come to us like “Play it again, Sam,” a famous quote that was never said in the first place. But if nobody else ever said it I just did and I am closer, as we all are.
 
I’m closer to moving. Recent posts have alluded to the upheaval I’ve been going through. No offense to anybody out there whose lives have been interrupted at the hands of a pandemic virus, racial inequities, civil unrest, or a variety of other happening and pending disasters, but I haven’t personally been thus up heaved. My tribulations are from not quite having a home while my life and possessions are split between two residences. Yeah I know, first world problem. Sorry.
 
But … just because I’ve been a nervous and physical wreck doing a semi do it yourself move doesn’t mean I’ve been ignoring the pandemonia happening around me. Naturally I have a few words to say about it. First and foremost,  somebody better write to the dictionary people and suggest they pay more respect to pandemonium’s plurality. Most do not even bother to include it. In their defense it isn’t the norm for more than one pandemonium to occur concurrently but here we are. And if it seems I am making light of the crises (another plural we need to resurrect), it is because the world is treating them lightly.
 
For example, let’s consider the continuing saga of COVID, or As the Virus Turns. And turning it is – turning the world on its head. For anybody who thinks the worst is over, I’m talking to you Florida, record numbers of new cases are being reported, I’m talking to you Florida! And others. Around the world record numbers of new cases are breaking out, in fact, this weekend was the largest increase in cases worldwide. Really.
 
As if rampant disease and death isn’t enough we have protests (peaceful), riots (not so peaceful), weird apologies (Columbus Ohio wants to change its name to Flavortown?), and still no stable supply of soap on store shelves (what would Granny Clampett make of that? Lye soap naturally!).
 
Now, for my big problem, Moving. Monday (that’s today!) I am out of my current residence mostly because I’ve run out of places to put me. It has been overtaken with boxes! (Remember this 👇)
moving-boxes
But I’m not in my new residence with the requisite pieces to maintain this diversion, specifically internet access, until Wednesday. Therefore, you probably shouldn’t expect anything from me Thursday (like you haven’t been anyway) and if Comcast is as efficient with getting things set up and started on Wednesday like I know they will be, you might be best not expecting anything from me next Monday either. (Sigh) But I closer and closer is as closer does and eventually I’ll get to do it again.
 
Sorry if I was a little ranty today. First world problems get me bitchy.
 
 
 
 
 

Springing Forward

Michael Leave a comment

We’re going away this weekend.  We’d love to be going to a South Pacific island, inhabited or not, but we’re only going about 200 miles from where we are and that’s covered in snow right now.

We’ve been looking forward to this weekend since early December.  Maybe earlier.  Before you get ahead of us, we’ve not been planning our little weekend gateway some 200 miles from here since early December.  But we have been looking forward to this weekend since then.  Why?  Daylight Saving Time begins.  This Sunday at 2:00 am, as if by magic, it will become 3:00am.  That means where it will be dark at 6:30 this evening will be light at 6:30 Sunday evening.  No longer will we have to go to work and come home in the dark.  Maybe
one or the other but not both. So what if it only lasts until November 3.  We can’t wait.

People respond positively to light.  We live better with light, we live longer with light, we’re happier with light.  There are studies to prove all that.  The most convincing study is us.  We’re sick of it turning dark before we’ve even pulled dinner out of the oven.  Heck, there are some days that we’re sick of it turning dark before we’ve even pulled the car out of the garage at work.  We need light.  We crave light.  We love light.

Maybe that’s a little melodramatic but you get the idea.  We like light.  Apparently so did Benjamin Franklin who first proposed the idea although it was some hundred and twenty years later before it was accepted and began to take hold across the world.  It was never accepted without some controversy.  Controversial or not, we do better with more light in the evening than in the morning.  Eventually the morning will catch up anyway.

If people don’t universally accept Daylight Saving Time, we understand.  It was well into the 1890’s before there was even any sort of standard time in the United Sates and that was invoked by the railroads that insisted on keeping to a schedule.  Before that, whatever time was on the church steeple or the front of the bank or on some other prominent clock around town was whatever time it was around town.  Eventually people got used to the idea of there being some sort of time standard.  Eventually they’ll come around to our way of thinking that more light in the evening is a good thing.

But there is just one problem.  We’re going away this weekend.  Because we’ll be setting our clocks ahead an hour on Sunday morning we’re going to lose an hour of our mini-vacation.  We’ve had some pretty rough weeks at work lately and can really use the time off.  Do you think we can convince the hotel to push check out time forward an hour as well?  We can use all the hours off that we can get.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?